


half a heart

by yourmoon



Category: Lovelyz, SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-26
Updated: 2019-09-26
Packaged: 2020-10-28 12:15:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,636
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20778410
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yourmoon/pseuds/yourmoon
Summary: Myungeun is going to leave everything behind. Or at least she tries to.





	half a heart

**Author's Note:**

> Recommended song to listen while reading this: Kang Minkyung - Because I Love You (or better yet, Myungeun's cover of it in THE LIVE)

Myungeun groaned, almost threw her phone away but she gave up the idea as soon as she remembered she hadn’t gotten her salary this month. She tiptoed towards her couch, careful not to step on her belongings scattered all over the floor. Yein was supposed to help her packing her stuff that afternoon, but Myungeun just got a text from Yein that her professor made a sudden make-up class which prompted her to stay at the campus a little bit longer. 

It was the day of moving out for Myungeun. Her landlord’s fast-food restaurant went bankrupt a couple of weeks ago, leaving them with no choice but to increase the monthly rent by 50%. Absolutely ridiculous, she thought. As a college student slash part-time photographer in a small start-up company, Myungeun couldn’t afford a room anymore. She tried to look for an affordable flat, in the meantime, Myungeun would stay at Yein’s. After hours of whining and shooting her best puppy-look, Yein let her sleep at her flat, as long as Myungeun promised to split the chores. 

Myungeun huffed, sinking herself on a couch. Her eyes wandered around her small flat, couldn’t believe she would leave her second home soon enough. Cardboard boxes sat on the wooden floor, “Textbooks” “Plushies” and “Tiny cute stuff” scrawled on its sides in a sky blue sharpie. Her eyes landed on an opened box, two feet away from her, Myungeun’s handwriting scribbled on its side, clumsily written in hurry. “To throw out” was being crossed, replaced by “Just…old stuff.” She stood up and shambled towards it. Crossing her legs, she sat down, peeking into the box as if she had no idea what’s inside. There were photos, a small Snoopy doll, a Buzz Lightyear figure, a bouquet of dried ivory roses and baby’s breath which looked so much like a wedding bouquet (Myungeun scoffed at the irony), an oversized soft beige crew neck sweater (oversized, because it wasn’t her). Myungeun sucked her breath when she saw a hardback book, her first _actual_ book that she bought (she wasn’t a reader, she did read though, textbooks from her classes). She lifted the book carefully as if it would shatter even from the softest touch. Her mind nudged her, telling her to open the book. And she did. There was her sign at the bottom corner, with a date when she bought it. Her eyes drifted up, right at the top corner of the book where she found messy handwriting, definitely not hers, written WM with a small heart at the end of it. The corner of her lips slightly quirked up, muttering “How silly.” to herself. As the memory suddenly flashed in her mind, she felt her heart was heavy. She missed him. She missed him and it was suffocating for her.

It was a downpour that Saturday night. At her favorite café, Myungeun sat down across Wonwoo, hands fidgeting at the ear of her hot chocolate mug. 

“Let’s break up.”

Myungeun studied his face when she said that. But Wonwoo’s muscles on his face didn’t move an inch, as if he had foreseen it was coming. His face might not tell her anything, but she could read his eyes. His crestfallen eyes which held her gaze looked exhausted. They both were. 

“If it is what you want.” He whispered, his voice sounds so hoarse and bitter to her ears. And every word that slipped out of his lips stung like a thorn.

“It is not…” Myungeun balled her fist, frustrated. “It is not what I want. It is what _we_ need.” 

Wonwoo only stared at her. His eyes traveled her features, the faint wrinkle on her forehead, her light brown eyebrows that balanced her blonde hair, her long and fluttering eyelashes, her eyes which stared back at him, her pointed nose, her small cherry lips, his eyes devoured it all, memorizing every inch of her face. After a hundred heartbeats, he finally took a deep breath.

“Okay.”

Myungeun didn’t try to stop him when he excused himself, letting him drenched in a downpour. She didn’t ask him to stay. That day, she let him go.

Ending three years of a relationship was not easy for both of them, for Myungeun. The hardest part of letting him go was that she loved him, and she was sure he still did too. They broke up was not because they fell out of love, or because there was another person between them. It was never like that. In some ways, their worlds didn’t collide because they got differences and impulses. Wonwoo wanted this, Myungeun wanted that. They were both aware that things would never work out if they were still holding on to each other. They needed time and space to fix themselves, to push themselves to be a better person, and it was not going to work if they were together. All they did was hurt each other. Maybe Wonwoo realized it too, that’s why he agreed on her. That’s why he never called her again. Or at least it was what Myungeun thought. She didn’t want to torture herself even more by thinking about how Wonwoo didn’t love her anymore. 

Myungeun’s eyes dropped at the sweater, hands nonchalantly caressing it. The fabric was warm and exquisitely soft under her touch. The memory of how it wrapped her warmly during her worst night lingered vividly on her mind. 

That day, Myungeun remembered she sat at the bar with her friends who keep reminding her to stop drinking. But Myungeun couldn’t. She just wanted to feel better, and she thought alcohol could help her. She woke up with a feeling her head would explode like someone was hammering it over and over again. She glanced at the table clock beside her. 01:00 a.m. 

“You wake up?”

She turned to a familiar voice beside her and found Wonwoo was looking down at her, leaning his back at the headboard with a book on his hand. Myungeun closed her eyes, trying to collect some missing puzzle pieces of her memory. She knew she was drunk last night and the last thing she remembered was Wonwoo putting his sweater on her, hands on her waist to support her while he waved his free hand to stop a taxi.

A wave of dizziness hit and nausea flipped her stomach over. She rolled over, stumbled towards her bathroom and vomited as she reached the sink. She felt Wonwoo’s warm body behind her as he held her hair, hands messaging her nape gently. 

“I thought getting drunk is fun.” She mumbled, trying to put humor in her tone. Wonwoo didn’t say anything, still messaging her nape as if he knew Myungeun wasn’t done throwing her brunch out of her system yet. She threw up again.

Wonwoo’s silence made her feel guilty. Myungeun didn’t tell him she was about to go out with her friends. He wasn’t supposed to know. Myungeun braced herself to find Wonwoo’s furious eyes when she looked up to the mirror. But she didn’t find it. Instead, he looked back at her with worried eyes. Myungeun was supposed to feel better at the sight of it, but it wrenched her heart even more.

Myungeun mindlessly wiped her mouth with the sweater she was wearing. When the realization hit her that it was not hers, she turned around to face Wonwoo and muttered, “Hehe. Sorry.”

Wonwoo followed her back to her bedroom, sitting at the bunk of her bed as she plopped down on her bed, legs stretched out in front of her. Wonwoo brought her legs and laid them across his lap so he could scoot closer. Myungeun just watched and let him did so.

“Tell me what happened.” Wonwoo said, finally.

Myungeun inhaled deeply before she proceeded to tell how her day turned out to be a mess, how she tired she was juggling between her college and work, how she was afraid she would lose her scholarship, and how she almost lost her job because a stupid mistake she did. Wonwoo listened to her attentively. He didn’t try to cut her story, he listened and listened. Myungeun thought she would break down in tears, but she didn’t. Thanks to him. The way he listened to everything, the way he never tore his gaze away from her, the way his thumb caressed her calf with soothing strokes, all of them gave her strength. And it was just the way he was. Wonwoo might look so cold and cynical, like those bad boys in fiction that teenagers usually read, but he wasn’t like that at all. Wonwoo was caring and sweet, that’s why she loved him. Myungeun might have a lot of regrets in her life, but Wonwoo was never one of them.

Myungeun was pulled back to reality by the ringing of her phone. She grabbed it lazily and found Yein’s text that said she was on her way to Myungeun’s flat, which was a good thing because she was getting bored packing her stuff alone (and also she didn’t want her mind to start wandering around to her past). 

She looked down at the box and huffed. Her eyes drifted to a grey tape beside it. There was a hesitation when she reached the tape, but there was no going back. And she already decided. Another huff came out of her mouth. If she wanted to leave everything behind, she needed to mean everything she had said. Myungeun taped the box shut, grabbed a black sharpie and crossed “Just…old stuff.” aggressively. She inhaled deeply as she wrote, “Goodbye, thank you and I love you.”

Myungeun had to keep going. She had to figure out how to live with half of heart. It wouldn’t be easy, but she had to try.


End file.
